When Shrek and Donkey are riding the dragon, there is a spoof of Star Wars, the Death Star trench scene, and the sound effect of the dragon shooting a fireball is the same one from the same scene in Star Wars.

When the attraction opened in Universal Orlando in 2003 it only used up half of the original building, but the crowd waiting to see the attraction generated enormous wait times. Universal decided to build an exact mirror image to the ride in the other half of the theater to reduce wait times which opened in the spring of 2004.

Even in this short feature there's plenty of side references. For example, Donkey's line "We got a donkey driving a carriage made from an onion, it's dark, and our horse are wearing sunglasses. Hit it, boys!" is a quote from The Blues Brothers, and shortly after that he says "I feel dead people", reference to a quote from The Sixth Sense stating "I see dead people".